Really, I'm not stupid...

[Salinye]

Hopefully not everyone is punctuation plagued like I am. I have for some reason forgotten all the rules that have to do with commas. I find when I'm writing I stress about where comma's do go and don't go. I used to know all this stuff like it was second nature, but I've been out of school for ten years!

 

If anyone would like to add a brief general guideline, I'd love to read it! Who knows, maybe it will help someone else besides me. :0)

 

~Salinye

[Gwaihir]

1: Commas go after each member of a series. 'Joe has two ears, one tongue and three legs.' (Grammar teachers argue about whether there should be a comma before that 'and.')

2: Appositionally as in 'Joe, the three legged man, walks really oddly.'

3: Commas follow prepositions if the prepositions seperate clauses. 'Joe would walk normally, but it's hard when you have three legs.'

4: Also, commas go after adverbs when used on their own. 'Nevertheless, Joe is happy with his third leg.'

5: Lastly, if you break up a clause, then the interuption(s) should be commad off. 'Joe, who has three legs, just like his dog, likes to play fetch.'

 

 

Poor Joe.

[Alaeha]

Though using commas in the manner displayed in #5 can cause confusion. For myself, I can't figure out whether (a) Joe's dog has three legs and Joe likes to play fetch, or (b )Joe likes to play fetch, just like his dog.

[Appy]

To me, #5 sais that Joe likes to play fetch, and his dog merely also has three legs, just like Joe... but it tells us nothing about if his dog likes to play fetch aswell.

Also, it's not obvious that Joe likes to play fetch with his dog, it's only common sense telling us that that's logically the case...

 

I guess it's one of those guts feelings that some languages have? Or is there an actual rule for it... no idea.

 

Great way of explaining Gwai .... Poor Joe

 

 

*giggle*

 

-Appy

 

[editted 'cause it's way too early in the morning for me to be coherent. One can try thought, right? ]

Edited June 21, 2004 by Appy

[Peredhil]

I thought Joe had three legs, just like his dog...

 

And they both liked to play fetch.

 

Funny ole Joe

[Jade]

And commas go between one word descripers such as: "Joes's big, hairy dog runs slowly."

[Gwaihir]

Well, that comma is optional.

[Zadown]

Only comma rule about english I ever learnt was "when in doubt, leave it out" - but I guess that only goes for us Finns, finnish has really strict comma rules and we are supposed to really drench all our stuff in comma-soup before it is done right.

[Salinye]

Actually, speaking as president and co-founder of "The Comma Retarded", I really appreciate all the input. :0)

 

~Salinye

[Peredhil]

I think, but only occasionally, that all this comma, grammar related rule stuff is really, really, really somewhat confusing to understand sometimes...

 

[Nyyark]

I think that the old pen had something like this. I remember Zool saying something about commas not having to go somewhere I thought they did. I can't remember the name of the thread. It seems to me it was some sort of thread drift or something. Its not like you need commas anyways...